Glasson Still the Leader of Olympic Pack : Golf: There are plenty of players chasing him for $540,000 first prize.

SAN FRANCISCO —  It’s an all-out sprint to the bank today in the final round of the $3-million Tour Championship, where eight players are within three shots of the leader.

That would be Bill Glasson, the shaggy-haired flyboy who pilots his own plane and tinkers with his golf swing like some kind of mechanic.

Look at it this way. Somebody is going to scoop up $540,000 today, and Glasson, who is at eight-under-par 205, begins with one foot in the vault.

Glasson stayed in the lead with an even-par 71 Saturday at the Olympic Club, which wasn’t so bad, but wasn’t so great either.

Besides changing his swing, Glasson did something else.

“I let a lot of people back in the tournament,” he said.

Pro golf’s richest tournament is starting to look like a free-for-all.

One shot back of Glasson at 206 are Mark McCumber, who had a 69, and Fuzzy Zoeller, who had a 66. Ernie Els, who bogeyed the last hole, is in a group at 207 with Brad Bryant and Steve Lowery.

Jeff Maggert, Corey Pavin and John Huston are next at 208.

That’s a lot of people, and all of them are trying to win a lot of money.

Glasson said he’s not all that caught up in the money thing, at least as it relates to the golf thing.

“The money is just not all that important,” he said. “I’m looking at this tournament as a building block for next year, maybe making a run at a major.

“That’s my goal for this week, to build on this performance. Hopefully it will be good. I hate to build on a bad performance.”

Well, you can see why. But at the very least, it’s probably going to be an entertaining experience, mainly because Glasson is going to be paired with Zoeller, a walking lounge act with a golf club.

Zoeller is within, well, joking distance of winning his first tournament of the year after four second-place finishes.

Zoeller said he has no clue if he’s due or not.

“I don’t know, but if you can look in your crystal ball and tell me, I won’t come out tomorrow,” he said.

Glasson, who has been paired with Zoeller before, hopes Fuzzy remembers his name this time.

“He always calls me Dick for some reason,” Glasson said. “I don’t know if he thinks my name is Richard or what.”

Zoeller’s round was as polished as his post-round monologue. His 20-foot birdie putt on No. 9 was his third birdie on the front nine and then he bagged two more coming in.

“It’s a game,” he explained.

It’s a game he has been playing a long time. Zoeller joined the PGA Tour in 1975 and is the 1979 Masters champion and the 1984 U.S. Open champion.

The key to beating the Olympic Club’s Lake Course is that the greens break from the back to the front and that everything breaks toward the lake, Zoeller said.

These are the clues, he said, now figure out what to do with them. Only two things, after all.

“You got to remember where the lake is and where the front of the greens are,” he said.

Zoeller, 43 next month, has a reputation of enjoying the delights of neon lights and the 19th hole, which he said continues unabated.

Someone asked if he had changed his lifestyle.

“No,” Zoeller said. “Want to go have a drink?”

Glasson’s round was a quite an experience. He birdied No. 1, bogeyed No. 3, No. 4 and No. 6 when he missed all three greens, then birdied No. 8.

He rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 13 and a 10-footer on No. 15, but gave one shot back when he three-putted No. 16 for a bogey.

“It was a struggle,” said Glasson, who insisted there never was a question if he ought to change his swing, only what change to make.

The change Glasson made was in his setup, as in bending his knees slightly.

It’s probably a good idea to practice it, so he is ready to pick up some money when the time comes.

Zoeller said it’s a wonderful tournament.

“I think it’s the tour saying, ‘Gentlemen, we appreciate your having a wonderful year, here is a little bonus for you.’ ”

Zoeller said the money is not that big a deal to him anyway.

“Let me just say when I’m dead and gone and people are looking at you in there, you think those people are going to talk about the $500,000 or whatever it is you won?

“They’re going to come here and look at that trophy and see that name etched in there.

“That’s history. The money’s great, but getting your name on that trophy, that’s our goal as players, putting our name on that history book.”

Anybody remember who won last year? It was Jim Gallagher Jr.